To feel very inadequate that my nephew is the same size as my dd and a year younger.....

[Noellefielding]

Honestly, I'm sure he weighs more too...
dd is two and is in clothes for 18 month old kids. Nephew is enormous and blocks out the sun if you stand next to him .

Can't help but stress out that I didn't feed her enough.
.....

The health profs think she's fine by the way, I think she's within the normal range and he's exceeded most records for our species..... and he eats enough for 12 people while dd picks and pokes like like some skinny Parisian lady!
Also b in law goes on and on and on about how well he eats and how healthily and how he's a record breaking size yawn yawn yawn.
Why does child rearing have to be such a competition?
Why does it bother me!

Not really sure what hugely interesting point I was making there!

hearing about the size disparity between siblings has been really heartening, thanks for the posts.

knitting I feel the same about ds who has slowly been catching up with his peers but I know how you feel.

A friend of mine has a 4 month old son and a 22 month old daughter the other day her 4 month old was wearing 9-12 month old clothing whilst her daughter wore 6-9 month old cardigan!! The baby is quite long and a good weight - her daughter is just slim and of slightly average height.

I'm glad it helped - thought I was just rambling! DS2 was such a big shock tbh, and such a worry - if I had been 7 stone and 5" tall I could have understood a 1st centile baby, but both dh and I are tall and big and he is just sooo small.

After getting months of grief over DS1's weight, the irony was not lost on me that I was now being referred to a cons cos DS2 was such a titch!

Just goes to show, that parents have relatively little control over their kids' size (unless they starve them or feed them McDs all day every day!) as both DSs were fed and weaned exactly the same way.

"I do hope DS2 doesn't remain too small though cos I think life's tough as a small guy ."

Knitting - yup, I worry about that too. DD's being small feels less of an issue - its cute to be wee. MY DH was small as a child/teen - looked several years younger until he was 15 - then grew 5inches in a year. But he was bullied because of it. My DS1 is fine at the mo tho' - was playing pretty boisterously with a friends DC who's 6.5 and friend was 'ooh...don't hurt zam's DS' - DS pops up triumphantly with Mr Muscle arms shouting 'I may be small but I have defeated him'!!! Lol! Sometimes being big in stature isn't everything I guess. Hope it continues!

I don't think you can tell at that age how a person will end up in terms of size and build. I was a tall and stocky 2 year old and I grew up to be petite and slim.

My dd is now 10 and tall. She does not have my build, she is quite broad-shouldered. I have no idea if she will continue to be a head or so taller than most girls her age or if they will suddenly sprout and she will stop growing in puberty so they over-take her.

I am sure you are not under-feeding your dc and if she gets plenty of outdoor time and exercise, she will reach the height she will reach.

It may be that the nephew is taller now but she will shoot up in puberty and overtake him even.

Lol zam, that's so sweet!

I do think girls get away with being small in a way that isn't so acceptable for men (think of small men, tall women combo - still remarked upon and raises eyebrows).

DS2 will at least have his solid big bro to look out for him, but I hope he catches up. Dh is 6" and I'm 5" 9' so we were expecting two strapping sons! (However, my MIL and sister are short arses so we do have some worrying short genes in the family ).

OMG, what is wrong with people here today?

Did anyone actually think NF was actually saying that her nephew blocked out the light? Really? I totally got what she was saying, that her nephew is a sturdy little fella and her dd is a petite little thing.

FWIW, NF, I sort of feel the same about ds3 and his cousin who is 6 months younger but much bigger and broader. Ds3 was prem and always a little bit smaller than his brothers had been and IMO ds1 and ds2 are not huge either! When ds3 is beside his cousin, there are times when I wonder if I could have done any more to build him up a bit!

But I really think it's mostly genetic. When my neice was born with a very low birthweight, a lovely big German doctor who was 6ft 4 told my dsis that he had only been 3lb at birth! My family are mostly shortarses and I think ds3 takes after us.

But tbh, even my SIL would point out that her dd, unlike her big brother is actually smaller than average, has a tiny appetite and is wearing clothes for a younger age group.

My MIL on the other hand uses it to make me feel inadequate but that's just MIL!

My neice and nephew are both tiny in comparison to my DD. Really hope my sister don't feel the way you do. Doubt it though.

It works out quite well for us as there is 9 months between my DD and her little cousin so we pass down loads of DD's clothes as DD is aleast one or two clothes sizes bigger than my neice.

chipmonkey thanks for your post, glad you were sensitive to my tone!
And it is simply me feeling a bit guilty that bil and sil really focussed on his feeding pattern from a really young age. She breast fed him devotedly for 9 months and had a really steady timetable with an impressive range of foods from the beginning of his eating solids.

dd is my second and like many second kids she just fitted in with us, I didn't devotedly Annabel Karmel her a fabulous range of foodstuffs!

I think my worry (which I voice on mumsnet much more openly than I would in real life) is that I was not focussed enough on her diet and growth chart. Because what I can't really find out is the extent to which diet determines size. Presumably though it's not a perfect science.

But it is possible that some one has studied identical twins who have been raised separately with very different diets etc You could extrapolate something from these examples.

My dd is 4 and is a tiny speck of a thing! She's short, has small feet and is really skinny. Nothing wrong with her, just small, doesn't eat much and is a live wire. Just like both dh and me at that age.

My two nephews are 3 and 2 and they're both heavier than her lol.

Diet won't affect height, if you over feed you'll just end up with a fat child!!

harrassed I'm sure you're right but I think under one there is a diet element which is why they leap on the growth charts.

Also I think environment may well influence some children to become better eaters than others. I'm not being scientific, this is just ime, but I know uber organised earth mother types who make meal times really calm and warm and special and full of good nutritious food etc (sorry pause to vomit with jealousy...) I think some of kids in that kind of environment are more likely to be better eaters than the two children who have been brought up in my bloody chaotic stressed out home!
(Obviously it ain't always stressed out but I don't think I've mastered the calm tea the way I see so many women do - and I'm full of admiration I just have some kind of homemaking skill-bypass)

Noelle, FWIW, I bfed ds3 for 2.8 years, he got so much fresh food that he refused jars when he eventually did get them ( so inconvenient when out and about!) His cousin and his dainty little sister were both ff from birth, weaned early and got jars frequently. I think children will be what they will be and your input has very little to do with it!

Lets clarify things here.
The development of all children is different both physical and emotional.
Babies are expected to continue on the centile they start on and will hopefully not drop or gain across more than 2 centiles. If she is still around the line she started on she is fine. Your nephew may have been overfed but you haven't considered that? It is well known that if children put on lots of weight as babies they are more likely to be obese later in life. Being excessively big is not a sign of great health! Proportion of height to weight and not crude weight is a better indicator.

That said I had two light blockers PMSL One is now 4 and has started reception in size 7 uniform (nope she isn't fat, just a giant! Dads 6'4'').

My friends little girl is the same age and is the same height and weighs less than my 2.5yo. My friends dd eats far more than both my children and is perfectly healthy

OP - don't worry about your DD, as long as she is happy and developing in her own way I'm sure she's fine even if she's a bit small.

FWIW, my DS is 20mo and still wearing a pair of jeans for 6-9mo and his joggers are 9-12mo and too long!! (from Sainsburys, apparantly they do often over-do their sizes). I worried a lot as, despite being happy, funny, interactive etc. he only started walking independently a month ago. He eats a lot but me and DP are on the small side so I think it is just genes (good ones hopefully).